


Robins in a Pine-tree

by Sweetsugarmouse



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Confused Dick Grayson, Eventual Happy Ending, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt Tim Drake, Idiots in Love, Jason Todd Feels, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Pining, Temporarily Unrequited Love, concerned bat dad, things get very awkward in the batcave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2020-10-04 03:20:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20464172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sweetsugarmouse/pseuds/Sweetsugarmouse
Summary: Jason loves Tim, Tim loves Jason, Damian loves Dick, and Dick... isn't sure how to process all this.I'm sure they'll do the smart thing and talk about their feelings like grownups... or they could all keep pining for each other in secret, that works too.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was working on other stories when this just popped into my head, hope you like it.

Damian was perching, or more accurately; brooding, on the roof of a warehouse at the edge of Red Hood's territory. It was just far enough to still be counted under bat jurisdiction but also close enough that nether Batman nor Nightwing would risk the tentative truce between them and the Red Hood by patrolling near it.

Damian had been going there a lot recently. Grayson was staying at the manor on one of his annual visits from Bloodhaven, he was his usual plucky self and apparently planned to stay for some time, he had missed them. It was torture.

Dick Grayson on a normal day was a very affectionate person; Dick Grayson after many months away from his family was damn near suffocating. He was everywhere, talking their ear off, patting them on the back, wrapping people up in a bear-hug. Bruce and Tim seemed to tolerate it while everyone else welcomed his affection with a fond smile. Damian on the other hand was seventeen, growing like a weed and dealing with annoying hormones that had finally caught up with him, he couldn't stand it.

His mother had given him a brief talk on the subject along with some books on puberty and diagrams of genitalia to study. She said that sex could be a valuable tool for an assassin, an excellent way of distracting or coercing someone to get what you want, as for your own lust it was only a temporary inconvenience and much like pain you could simply learn to ignore it. Well he had been eight at the time and slightly stunted from the extreme ninja training and numerous injuries he'd sustained throughout it. He had believed her, he believed everything she and his grandfather tried to teach him before they sent him off to live with his father, it had only taken a few years to learn that most of what he was taught was a bunch of shit.

Every light touch, every slight whiff of Grayson's sweet, masculine scent set Damian's nerves on fire. When he wandered around the mansion in his old shirts he had clearly grown out of, that clung to his biceps and showed off his taut mid-riff, along with some loose lounge pants that hung low on his narrow hips, Damian had to slink off to take a second shower. As far as using the batcave, Damien had lost count of how many times he'd walked in there to find Grayson doing gymnastics in nothing but his boxers and been forced to march back out again. 

Alfred seemed to have caught on to his little dilemma, when Damian realized that the old butler was covering for his sudden absences and surlier than usual attitude he was half mortified half grateful. The old man also knew Damian well enough to know that a conversation about it would not be welcome, the butler did make one comment about the road to adulthood being tough for everyone but otherwise left the subject alone. Bruce was as always; a bit ignorant to anything outside the world of crime fighting and Dick was easily mollified by Alfred's explanations, "he's a teenager master Dick, they do not enjoy being "noogied" in my experience." 

Damian's brooding was interrupted by the sound of someone landing next to him, he didn't even need to look up to know it was Redhood. The man stank like gunpowder and stale cigarettes, he also threw all his weight into his landings making him the least quiet of the bat clan.

"Hay! If it isn't the bat-brat poaching on my turf, you fall out of your nest or something?"

"Tt, Shove it Hood" huffs Robin "we are both aware I am beyond the bounds of your territory and I am simply observing."

Red Hood pulls off his helmet and sits down casually to light a cigarette. "see; I'v done my fair share of running off on patrol to sit on crappy rooftops, just to have some time away from the boss man, so I think I know what it looks like when I see it. What's he done this time?" 

"It's not him" says Damian, and immediately bites his tongue.

"Ah, so it must be dickybird, he's home for a visit huh?" 

Damian says nothing; which is an answer in of itself, Jason takes a long puff of his cig. "You're not the first you know. Dick's pretty intense, and those little outfits he wears..."

"I don't want to hear this from you Todd!" interrupts Damian with a hiss.

"Look I'm just saying I get it is all, and I think half the teen-titans got their first awkward boners from him too." 

Robin grits his teeth, this is why he doesn't discuss this sort of thing, and logically he knew that Grayson is an attractive man but hearing put like that makes him seethe with jealousy. And really there's nothing he can do about it. 

Jason realizes he may have made things worse and sighs smoke through his nose. The current robin was normally so hard to rattle but right now he just looked lost, Jason wondered if the kid had anyone he could even talk to about this, not Dick obviously, or Bruce; that was laughable, Alfred probably couldn't relate no matter how supportive he was and Tim had said more than once the he and Damian barely tolerated one another. Ah shit now he felt bad for the brat, well... here goes something. "Hay you wanna know a secret?" 

Damian doesn't answer but inclines his head.

"I... have a thing... for Tim." Jason mumbles.

Damian considers this, he knew that Drake used to carry a torch for the then deceased boy wonder; and that Todd had been completely obsessed with the new robin whilst under the influence of pit rage. It made sense in a way, Jason Todd was possibly the least fortunate person in existence, every bad thing that could of happened to him did so, trust him to develop feelings for someone he'd tried to kill more than once.

"Have you... told him?" he asks tentatively. 

Jason snorts "have you told Dick?"

Robin chews his lip. That was basically the answer he expected, what a pathetic pair they made. 

"Hay." says Red Hood in a soft tone that makes Damian's spine straighten. "You wanna maybe, blow off some steam together?" 

Damian's not sure what floors him more, the fact that the Red Hood; who has spent years of his life trying to kill or maim all members of the bat family and until recently wouldn't be caught dead (again) anywhere near the mansion, is offering him... that! Or the fact that Damian has reached such levels of desperate depravity that he's actually considering it.

He is quiet for so long that Jason back-pedals "we don't have to, I mean, I just thought since neither of us can be with who we really want and you're about Tim's build now... I'm close to Dick's height and we all have similar hair if you think about it." He stops as Damian starts to nod slowly along with his rambling.

Todd was making a good point, he may be stockier than Grayson and a bit taller but as far as finding someone close in shape and coloring he could do a lot worse. It might work if he closed his eyes, and Todd isn't... ugly honestly, he's just not quite as beautiful as Dick, though nobody is from what Damian has seen. 

Red Hood throws his cigarette off the roof and leans in with a do or die expression, "lets close our eyes and kiss, if it doesn't work we can stop and never mention it again."

Robin licks his lips and steels himself, that sounds like a solid enough plan. He tips his chin to meet Jason in the middle and they very gently peck at one another. It's... not awful, Jason's lips are a bit chapped and he tastes like an ashtray; but then a gloved hand comes up to cup his cheek and he can just imagine Dick in his finger striped Nightwing outfit doing the same.

Jason is having an easier time, Damian's lips are soft and moisturized; much like Tim's looks when he's explaining his latest project or smiling that little half smile he does when Jason say's something sarcastic. He pictures those lovely lips in his head and cups the delicate face before him, it could almost be Tim.

The moment Damian gets the hang of imagining Dick; his own starts to make an appearance. The front of his uniform tents slightly and he starts to fidget, damn theses infuriating teenage hormones! His mother was wrong, there was no way he could simply ignore the batarang threatening to rip his pants open. 

Suddenly Jason grabs his crotch and squeezes, Damian gasps and his back arches in pleasure. Jason sees this as a go ahead to push him to the floor and massage the bulge with his palm, "Ah!" Damian attempts to speak but all that comes out is a breathy noise, behind his mask his eyes have rolled back in his head as the friction to his dick sends flashes of heat up and down his spine.

"Oh Tim" mutters Jason and plucks Robin's belt open before zipping the tight uniform pants open. Damian is beyond words at this point and claws at the rough surface of the roof while he pictures dazzling blue eyes looking down at him. Jason nudges a pre-come soaked jock to the side and sinks his mouth down on the hard little cock that pokes out of it. It's wet and warm and Damian lasts about three sucks "Oh! Oh! AH!" before he's coming into a waiting mouth.

Blood is still rushing through his ears for a second before he notices a loud slicking sound and quiet grunting, at some point the Redhood had taken his own dick out and started fucking his fist while he blew him.

Jason comes with a sound that may have been the start of Tim's name and Damian watches with gross fascination as Jason's rather large dick jumps and spurts come all over the green thighs and still unzipped crotch of his robin uniform.

They each pant into the night air, it's cold out and their breath billows out in clouds of steam, the sounds of traffic and distant police sirens echo off somewhere behind them, their cum is spattered between them, glistening wetly in the low light.

It takes all of ten seconds for the mood to shift, Damian pivots away from Red Hood's view and attempts to pull his pants back up while wiping himself down with a handkerchief he'd produced from somewhere. Red Hood simply tucks himself away and cleans his hand on a bit of gun-oil soaked rag, he kicks his legs over the side of the roof and lights another cigarette.

Robin stands up red in the face and scowling, Jason feels a pang of guilt, that was probably one of the few acts of intimacy the bat-prince has ever experienced and he got a little carried away.

"So..." he says because the silence is just getting more awkward now "same time tomorrow?" 

Damian puffs up like an angry cat, and then he deflates and gets and gets a steely glint in his eye. "Yes Todd, same time tomorrow."

Jason chokes on a lung full of smoke. "What!? I was joking!"

"Tt! well I'm not. Be here or don't Todd but this whole thing was your idea and you should really follow through."

He looks down to see Red Hood gaping like a fool "Tt" he flips his hood up and grapples away. 

Jason stares after him and goes to light up a cigarette, only to realize he's still holding one already. Wow, that really happened, and would again tomorrow. Perhaps he wasn't as recovered from the pit as he'd thought, really what else could explain the demon brat soliciting him for sex and him actually thinking about showing up, he must be hallucinating. 

He looks up at the blinking light of a helicopter, it had felt... good honestly, he'd been put off by how quickly the kid scrambled away from him, if he wasn't so sure it was nothing beyond virgin jitters he would have gone ahead and shot himself for doing that to someone. As Jason had suspected the kid looked embarrassed when he turned around rather than traumatized, he wasn't expecting the brat to want to do it again though, that really threw him for a loop.

What would Batman say if he knew his blood son and is outlaw son where screwing on roofs during patrol time? The thought made him grin, oh yes that was a very satisfying idea; he flicks his cig-end away and puts his helmet back on. The nights still young and there's always more crime to fight in Gotham.

He takes a running jump and grapples off in the opposite direction Robin had taken. He almost can't wait till tomorrow. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! sorry I don't have a scheduled for this but I can tell you I'm expecting this story to be about 6 or 7 chapters long.   
Thanks for reading!

  


They continued see each other, mostly on rooftops for a quick fumble but when they had some time to spare Jason would take them to one of his many bolt holes (not his main safe houses, just places with a bed and a bathroom.) The first few days Damian would blush like a sunset and then grapple off in embarrassment soon after, however the moment Jason teased him about it he became bolder and eventually Damian was the one "wearing the pants" (or not wearing in this case) during their time together.  


Thankfully Jason was comfortable enough in his masculinity to let the bat-prince boss him around, the kid was still technically a virgin and more nervous than he let on so Jason made allowances whenever he got snapped at or manhandled .

Jason found he was enjoying his little meet ups with the bat brat, it was refreshing to have an extra way of winding down his evening that didn’t involve washing blood off his shoes. That was until Tim got in contact and asked if he was free to discuss a potential lead for a large shipment of drugs coming into the docks.

Jason panicked and said that he was busy, somehow it hadn't occurred to him till then that after picturing Damian as Tim during sex he would then have to look the real Tim in the eye at some point. He continued to give Tim excuses while seeing Damian, this wasn't at all what he wanted but he's dug himself into a hole and now he didn't know how to get out. 

The friendship between the two former robins was a fragile one. It started when Red Robin gave him a heads up that he was tailing some of Scarecrow’s men through Jason's neighborhood, it was unexpected, none of the other bat clan would have given him the courtesy and of course Red Hood insisted on being let in on the mission since it was on his turf. Once again he was surprised to find the replacement so ready to except his help, he didn’t even bitch that Jason had brought guns.

After they had wrapped everything up the kid had the brass tack to smile sweetly at Hood and ask if he wanted to go get coffee and waffles, Jason pointed his gun at him and asked what the fuck his angle was.

Red Robin had huffed, huffed! At the gun in his face and said with a dryness that could only be rivaled by Alfred “I thought we got passed this already? You stopped trying to kill me, I forgave you for all those time you tried to kill me; I got replaced as Robin too and in case you haven’t noticed I didn’t exactly get the job back so what's your deal now!”

Red Hood stayed motionless, he knew his replacement had been tossed out on his ear when the new baby came, and honestly he had laughed at the irony, but hearing the bitterness in Red Robin’s voice only brought back his own feelings of pain and loss, his undead heart creaked with what may have been empathy. “I thought we… well, we’re in the same boat now aren’t we? Birds of a feather huh?” Red Robin chuckled weakly at his own joke and started to shift uncomfortably under the Red Hood's gun still aimed at his forehead.

Jason measured up his options. Sure he had somewhat simmered down the last few years, made good friends in Roy and Kori, come to terms with the fact that Bruce is just an unfeeling asshole who would never change, accepted that maybe his replacement didn’t fully deserve all the venom he directed at him, but just because he wasn’t trying to kill his former family anymore didn’t mean he wanted to work with them, he flew solo for a reason.

On the other hand he could never entirely let his old relationships lie, Barbara called him now and again, Christ knows how she kept getting his number but the woman could probably crack the pentagon if she took a mind to. On the rare occasions he had ended up at the batcave (typically only disasters of epic proportions got him anywhere near the place) Alfred had glowed with joy and sent him home stuffed with all his favorite foods. Even Dick-bag could inspire moments of the old brotherly affection the used to share, usually followed up with some bullshit that made Jason want to punch him in the face but still.

Things weren’t like they had been when he came out of the pit; it was different, not like his rose-tinted robin days but better than things had been in a long time. Perhaps this was another step forward.

After a very long and tense pause in which Red Hood had not lowered the gun; Red Robin was starting to think he had seriously miscalculated where he stood with his former idol. Then the Hood chuckles, it sounds forced but not cruel and Tim relaxes a fraction.

“Birds of a feather? That was awful replacement, you been taking stand up lessons from Dickybird?” he finally lowers his weapon and tucks it away. 

Internally Tim’s doing a little dance of joy, outwardly he just smiles “No, but you spend enough time with him his stupid jokes seem to rub off on you, you know?” the chuckle this time is more genuine and Tim shyly asks if that was a no on getting waffles.

They don’t go out to eat that time, or the next few times. Jason puts it off in the hope Red Robin and Red Hood’s relationship can remain strictly professional and eventually Tim will stop asking. He doesn’t and Jason caves after hearing the former Robin go ape-shit on Batman for interfering with a weapons trade they were cracking down on, apparently his replacement had more backbone against their former boss than he'd thought and Batman mostly stood there and took it, he’s only a little ashamed to say it gave him tingles.

They started hanging out for breakfast, not often but if a night went smoothly they would meet where each of their patrols ended and go grab a bite together. Weeks turned to months and before Jason knew it he and Tim had been friends and “work associates” for about a year and a half, the kid even bought him a Christmas present. He couldn’t say exactly when he had fallen in love but he did remember the moment he realized.

They were sitting in some shitty doughnut shop at four in the morning (civilian clothes; no masks) Jason had made some terrible joke, fuck knows what but Tim’s eyes had lit up with laughter, his cheek was resting on one hand while the other cradled his cup of coffee, he looked so young and so grown up all at once. He stared right into Jason’s eyes like they were the only two people on earth and Jason was suddenly floored with sheer rush of affection coursing through his veins. He blushed and sputtered his way through the rest of the conversation and then hopped on a plane to go blow shit up with the other outlaws while he straightened his head out.

The moment he returned to Gotham soil he got a text from Tim asking if everything was alright. It wasn’t but hell, what was he supposed to say? Their collaborations and breakfasts continued, the only difference now was how much Jason noticed himself falling with each meeting.

  


Currently, Jason was spread-eagled in the middle of a squeaky bed at one of his more deserted supply cashes (it was little more than a squat really but it had lube and clean bedding at least.) Damian was naked as the day he was born and riding against Jason’s cock with both hands sliding up and down their lengths at a furious pace. He still wasn’t ready for penetrate sex just yet, they had tried fingering but it mostly made his skin crawl and his erection wilt, luckily Todd was quite happy with rutting and blowjobs; he also never pressured Damian into anything and allowed him to be on top as much as he liked, Damian knew he could take Red Hood in a fight if needed but seeing that the older man really did have some scruples under all that blood covered Kevlar made each liaison much easier.

Jason’s strong thighs kept Damian steady while the young robin bounced up and down in imitation of anal sex, their slick cock’s rubbed deliciously together between Damian’s slender hands. Jason had his head tossed back and his eyes closed, he imagined Tim; pale and soft above him, his beautiful blue eyes staring down, sweat glistening on his snowy, silky skin, Jason’s toes curled against the cheep sheets and he felt his orgasm fast approaching.

Damian was much in a similar state but his eyes where open, he stared fixedly at Jason’s toned midriff, the v of his hips snaking down to the dark thatch of his pubic hair, he pictured Dick on the balance bars, his wonderful trapezist muscles flexing and the occasional peek of black hairs that appeared at the waistline of his boxers. His breath came short and his legs began to shake as he reached a climax, sweat dripped from his brow and down his arching back.

A sudden noise behind them startled them both, they froze mid thrust and Jason opened his eyes while Damian whipped around like an angry cobra. What they saw chilled them to the bone and sent them from almost coming to completely flaccid in seconds.

Batman, Nightwing and Red Robin where all stood at the bedroom doorway with matching looks of horror, Batman’s face would have appeared stoic to the casual observer but to those who knew him well he looked practically shell-shocked. Nightwing wasn’t even trying to hide expression of revulsion and had one hand up over his mouth like he might be sick, Red Robin stood pale and still with the ridged posture of someone trying not to pass out.

Time stopped, everyone stood stock still as if the moment might pass if they all remained motionless. Damian felt his stomach squirm under his ribs and the sweat on his back ran cold as ice water, Nightwing and his father where staring at his naked form between the Red Hood’s legs, the look of disgust on Nightwing’s face set his lip wobbling and heart plummeting with shame.

Jason couldn’t take his eyes off Tim, he was hard to see under the cowl in the dim light but to Jason he looked clear as day, it was a face Jason had seen on many assault victims; one of pain suppressed only by the utter shock they’d just experienced. Tim looked crushed; Jason had never felt so sick in his life.

Batman was the first to snap out of it, he pushed Nightwing and Red Robin back with one arm and pulled the door of the bedroom closed with the other, “get dressed” he growled just before the door clicked shut.

Two shaky sounds huffed out in the darkness as Jason and Damian let out the breaths they had been holding. Damian sagged like a cut string and rolled onto the floor to pull on his robin uniform. Jason blinked at the ceiling for a moment, he had fantasized about the Batman catching them; swooping in and finding him eating some “robin pie”, but the thing about a fantasy is it stays in your head where you don’t have to deal with any repercussions, in reality Jason would rather light himself on fire than experience what he just had.

Tim, what was he supposed to say to Tim? “Hay you know that kid you hate? the one that took your job as robin away from you and constantly makes your work and home life difficult? Yeah I’m sorry you caught me having sex with him, can we still be friends?”

Robotically he puts on some pants and his jacket, Damian’s visibly shaking while tying his boot laces. They can’t even look at each other, oh god; Jason hasn’t felt like this since he saw that photo of the new Robin taken only months after his murder, only now instead of rage he feels numb.

When they open the door Batman is looming in the center of the room, Nightwing is shuffling awkwardly with his arms folded and Tim is sat on the window ledge staring at nothing.

Damian’s lip twitches like he’s about to speak but then he doesn’t, he lets his head hang for a moment before screwing up some nerves, “father…” he starts, but then he can’t say anything else, how is he meant to explain this?

“Damian… what, was that?” asks Dick; because of course Dick finds his voice first.

“It’s called sex genius” snarks Jason and inside he wants to shoot himself because Tim’s still here but he can’t help leaping into defense mode while Bruce and Dick are looking at him like that.

“Jason!” Batman snaps, and that really doesn’t help. “What? I think you’re all familiar with the concept, and while we’re asking questions what the fuck are you all doing here!”

Damian looks like he wants to ring Jason’s neck but then tilts his head at his father because he’d like to know the answer to that too.

“You’ve been going off coms and acting suspiciously, we decided to track you.” Batman’s signature growl is in full effect, he’s clearly decided not to address the issue as Bruce and gone full bat for this conversation instead.

“All three of you?” probes Damian, he finds it odd that Drake had accompanied them.

“Tim said Jason had been acting strange too and we thought maybe you two where planning something” explains Dick while running a hand uncomfortably through his hair.

Tim said nothing. He wasn’t even looking at them.

“Well as you can see we aren’t hatching any nefarious plans or whatever; so why don’t you all hop out the way you came?”

Batman glares at Jason. Jason glares back. Damian sighs quietly because surely this can’t get worse.

“Damian?” Nightwing asks gently “he’s not… forcing you is he?”

The atmosphere immediately shifts from awkward and prickly to downright murderous. Tim grips the window ledge so hard the wood squeaks, Jason rears up with red in his eyes but Damian starts yelling first. 

“Are you an idiot Grayson? Did that look forced to you!? Do you think I would actually allow something like that to happen if I wasn’t consenting!?” his accent has turned a little more to his original Arabic and he’s practically spitting his words.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Dick repeats with his hands up in surrender to everyone’s ire. In hindsight he thinks that was a very stupid way to ask a sensitive question, he should have known Damian’s pride would be rankled by the suggestion he was in any way a victim but the question had popped out of his mouth before he could stop it. 

“You think I’m a rapist Dick?” hisses Jason between Nightwing’s apologies, Nightwing’s eyes bulge as he seems to fully realize what he’d just asked “NO! no Jason of course not I-“

“Really? Cos that’s exactly what it sounds like you where calling me, bat-brat’s too perfect for scumbags like me so surely I must be raping him huh?!”

While Nightwing is floundering for the right words to explain that he didn’t think that way about either of his brothers he just wanted to make sure none was getting hurt, Red Robin jumps to his feet; startling them all into silence.

“How and why?” he croaks. He’s staring directly at Jason and clearly struggling not to cry. The two formally furious men look down guiltily and their posture goes from ready to punch to unwilling to meet anyone’s eyes. “It just happened” mumbles Jason.

“It’s not a serious relationship, we simply decided to help each other find release now and then” Is Damian’s rather blunt answer. Nightwing looks somewhat relieved but Red Robin’s expression doesn’t change, he locks eyes with Jason a few seconds longer before turning on his heel and grappling wordlessly out the window.

“Tim…” starts Dick; but he’s already gone.

Batman sighs in the darkness. The remaining trio glances up to see him gliding towards the window as well. He looks at his sons and nods stiffly in Damian’s direction, “we’ll talk at home” he wavers like he wants to say something to Jason too but then decides against it and whips away into the night.

Jason stomps back into his “bedroom” slams and then locks the door in a very obvious “don’t come in I’m done talking” sort of way; leaving Damian and Dick in the other room, alone.

Dick is still fiddling uncomfortably with his hair; the silence is like a gaping void between them. 

As sorry as Damian feels for Todd and Drake (just because he doesn't like them most of the time doesn't mean he wishes them ill) he can't help but feel a little jealous too. They clearly care for one another, whether they admit it or not Drake wouldn't get that upset over them sleeping together unless he had feelings attached and Todd wouldn't be so pissed off getting caught if Tim hadn't been there to see it. 

Grayson on the other hand isn't displaying much beyond discomfort, confusion and that brief look of revulsion when he first saw them in the bedroom. That looks burns in Damian's mind and he hears himself ask suddenly "am I disgusting to you?" It's barely a whisper but in the quite of the room Nightwing snaps his head up as if Robin had shouted. 

Nightwing gapes, he gapes and he doesn't answer. 

Damian's eyes brim with tears and he sprints out of the open window. "Dami wait!" calls Nightwing and runs after him.

Nighwing searches all night in the rain but Robin is nowhere to be found and Oracle says she can't locate him, eventually Batman tells him to stop, Robin will come home when he's ready. After a long night and sleepless morning in the mansion Dick asks Alfred if Damian came home yet, he says no.

Red Robin spends the night perched on a gargoyle, he sits till he's soaked through, when the numbness of his limbs becomes too much he goes home. He has 50 missed calls and texts from Jason; he switches the phone off and drops it in the bin before getting a shower. When he curls up in bed he doesn't sleep, he doesn't cry and he doesn't call Jason back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing this Damian re-corrected to Damien and I panicked thinking I'd spent the entire last chapter spelling his name wrong.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, this is a Dick/Damian chapter mostly from Dick's point of view.  
If you like please leave me a comment they make my day <3

For days Robin was nowhere to be found. The years spent being raised by ninjas had clearly paid off because even Bruce was having trouble tracking his son down, the only person who saw hide or hair of him was Alfred.

Dick lost count of the amount of times he’d asked Alfred where Damian was only to be told he’d just missed him, it was starting to drive him nuts and Dick had a sneaking suspicion that the old butler was actually helping Damian to avoid him and Bruce.

Eventually he resorted to begging. “Alfred please!” he was leaning over the kitchen counter while Alfred made some tea and doing his best pout in the butler’s direction, “I know you know where he is, I just want to talk with him.”

“He does not wish to speak to you Master Dick and you should respect that.”

Well at least Dick knew for sure now that Alfred really was helping Damian to make swift exits, the next step was convincing Alfred that he was just trying to make things right.

“Alfred, I said something awful to him and now I can’t find him to apologies.” a half truth, it was what he didn’t say that had hurt Damian’s feeling.

“Didn’t you tell me once that when I make a mistake the best thing to do is say sorry?”

Alfred sighs (it’s more of a small breath through the nose but it’s the Alfred equivalent of a weary sigh) “very well Master Dick, but I must ask that you consider his boundaries should he still not wish to see you afterwards. He is in his bedroom.”

Alfred stalks off to bring Bruce his tea and a sandwich, Dick is left blinking at the spot the butler has just vacated because really? All that searching and he’s in his bedroom? Admittedly Dick had only looked for Damian in his room once or twice because that was too obvious a hiding spot, now that he thinks about it, too obvious is exactly the sort of hiding spot the son of Batman would pick, crafty Robin.

He walks the familiar halls of the Wayne manor and plants himself in front of the large wooden doors that lead to the youngest Wayne’s quarters. Dick knocks gently on the door, “Damian? Can we talk? I just want to make sure you’re ok”

The silence was deafening.

“Come on buddy I know you’re in there, please?” the door swings open so suddenly it nearly knocks him on his ass.

For possibly the thousandth time since coming back to the manor Dick has to mentally shake off the weirdness of being eye to eye with Damian. The boy had grown so much in the time Dick had been away that it sometimes floored him. He would be eighteen in a few months and Dick was positive by the next year he will have beaten Bruce as tallest in the family, Tim is livid about it if only for the fact he can no longer make short jokes at Damian’s expense.

Green-blue eyes the color of tropical oceans stare fixedly at him.

“Damian.” Dick breathes with relief, he always feels better for seeing him and after the stress of the last few days it’s like a weight lifted from his shoulders. The teen clearly does not share the feeling because his expression is alarmingly neutral and with Damian any look that isn’t a glare or sneer is usually cause for concern.

“What do you want Grayson?” and wow, his voice is disturbingly calm as well. Dick feels his back prickle; he’s never heard his Robin sound like this, so melancholy.

“Damian I wanted to say that you aren’t disgusting, I would never think that about you.”

Damian blinks slowly like a cat, “you thought it when you saw me with Todd, don’t try to deny it Grayson, your disgust was quite apparent.”

Dick doesn’t know what to say to that, he feels shame flush at his neck. He can’t precisely remember his reaction to seeing two muscular, sweating figures thrusting and grunting on a crappy squeaking bed like some kind of cheap porno only to realize it was Damian and Jason. He was a bit too busy reeling from shock to school whatever his face might have been doing but it probably wasn’t a kind expression.

“I was just… surprised! It wasn’t you; it was you with Jason, I didn’t expect it and I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

Damian looks unconvinced but some of his typical scowl has come back.

“I don’t think you fully understand what I was asking.” And the way Dick goes blank only proves his point, Damian huffs in exasperation but continues “the way Drake reacted… he was upset, weren’t you upset, even a little?”

“No!” Dick says immediately and by the thunderous look in Damian’s eyes that was the wrong answer.

“I… well… look Damian, I don’t think we’re on the same page at all here. Why don’t you explain what it is I’m not getting.”

Damian flexes his jaw like he’s about to eat a very overcooked piece of food. “Drake and Todd feel affection for one another, that’s why their reactions were so volatile. I understand that seeing your “brothers” in an act of intimacy would cause feelings of revulsion but we are not really brothers.”

Dick waits silently as Damian steels himself to say more, the kid looks unbearably uncomfortable.

“I care, greatly… for you Dick” and Dick flinches in surprise because Damian never says his first name.

“I find you stunningly beautiful; and I know I am physically attractive so I liked to think you felt the same of me… at least aesthetically. When I saw you look so disgusted by the sight of me and you didn’t seem to care that I was having intercourse except for that it was with Todd… I realized that you would never feel the same way about me as I do for you.”

Dick stands in shocked silence while he tries to unpick what he thought he just heard.

“Dami, are you saying… that. You. like. me?”

“Yes! You cretin!” Damian spits and if Dick wasn’t so busy short-secreting he might have marveled at how like his grandfather Ra’s al Ghul Damian had sounded in that moment.

“And thank you for making it abundantly clear how foolish I am for it!” Damian attempts to slam the door but Dick snaps out of his stupor in time to wedge his body in the way, there is a loud bang as wood hits Dicks foot and shoulder but he barely flinches and pries the door back open.

“Dami, your feelings aren’t foolish! It ok to have a crush I had plenty at your age but… you must understand why I don’t feel the same, you’re still a-“

“If you say kid Grayson then I swear to god I will break your foot!” Damian snaps and grips the door handle with a clear threat to slam it against the appendages that still block the door.

“I am the age of consent in Gotham, I have been for a full year and even is I wasn’t! I have been stabbed, shot, poisoned, and nearly been killed in numerous ways for as long as I can remember, I am not a child, I never have been; so don’t you dare use that as an excuse against me!”

Damian’s beautiful eyes are swimming with tears and Dick is left standing dry mouthed in the face of such a passionate from someone normally so closed off.

His Robin was always so mature for his age; it was more than a little depressing at times to see how much the league of assassins had deprived him of a childhood. Things like frivolousness and affection were completely alien to him and it took all of Dick effort to break through the spike covered walls the young boy had erected all around.

But if he had to go back and tear those walls down again, he would do so in a heartbeat.

He found that the Damian underneath was sweet, talented, fearlessly loyal and although his sense of humor was mostly based around cutting sarcasm he could be funny at times, at least Dick thought he was funny anyway. The boy had the heart of an artist, he liked to paint, and he was good at it! Dick had even found some poetry scribbled in the margins of a book left out in the library once (unfortunately Damian must have noticed someone had looked at it because it soon disappeared; never to be seen again.)

And for a child taught to kill from an early age he truly adored animals. Dick would never forget the time they had to confiscate a Bengal tiger that Catwoman had rescued from smugglers, Damian had been smitten and when it was time to send the tiger back to a reserve he had held the jungle cat’s face in his hands and pressed their foreheads together while the beast purred like an engine. To say that Catwoman had been amused would be an understatement, Batman seemed torn between scolding his son for getting that close to a dangerous animal and grateful that said animal was not a new addition to the many pets Damian already keeps in the batcave.

Perhaps Dick had been too focused on the innocent qualities he’d seen in Damian, it was so easy to treat him like another brother, a new robin to mentor. He just… never imagined Damian might see their relationship differently.

He’s stood in the doorway, gazing speechlessly at the bronzed skinned young man with eyes so green they almost glow in the dim light of the hall. A hand grabs his shirt and he’s pulled forward.

A pair of soft lips meet his own and his eyebrows nearly hit the ceiling in surprise.

Dick has kissed many times in his life but never quite like this. Instead of the feeling of wrongness he was expecting a zing of heat zips up his spine, his skin tingles all over and every hair stand up on his body, Damian’s tongue peeks out to lick gently at his bottom lip, it’s warm and wet and Dick has never felt so frightened by something that feels so good.

Fingers trace his jaw tenderly like they want to memorize the shape, a lock of black hair has fallen a little over Damian’s forehead and Dick’s arm twitches with the need to brush it out of the way, he can’t move; he’s frozen in place and those petal soft lips make one more cautious press against him before Damian is pulling back. Dick aches all the way to his toes but some sheer mental roadblock keeps him locked in place while his lips prickle to chase forward into another kiss.

Damian lets his hand on Dick’s jaw and the one gripping his shirt fall slack against Dick’s chest, he feels his mentor’s heart beating strongly under his palms and knows he is the reason for its rapid movement. If only it was beating with love and not with horror.

“I’m sorry.” He whispers.

Dick wants to say something, anything! His mind is too busy screaming in confusion, this is Bruce’s son, his own brother (sort of) why isn’t he running to the nearest bottle of bleach? It should feel awful but instead he’s fighting off the urge to grab his Robin by the hair and really _taste_ him.

“I know you don’t feel the same Dick and I do want us to stay as a family, but please, until I can be around you without wanting to do that I need you to give me some space.”

Damian stares and Dick realizes he’s waiting for an answer; he nods once and backs stiffly into the hall so that Damian can close the door.

The moment he hears the lock click shut he walks numbly back to his own room. He crumples into a shaky heap on the floor and presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, what has he done? He kissed his brother! No it was worse than that, he let himself be kissed and just stood there like a statue while he watched Damian’s heart break behind his eyes. Should he have kissed him back? But what would Bruce think?

Wait… if Damian wasn’t Bruce’s son would this be different? He considers for a moment.

The age gap is bit wide but as Damian so assertively pointed out his life experience is hardly the same as regular seventeen year old's. Damian’s driven tanks, flown planes and gets shot at almost nightly, Dick trusts him with his life, surly he can trust him to be mature enough to know his own feelings.

If Damian was somebody else’s son the thought of kissing him might not scare Dick so badly, he is a very beautiful man after all. He has Talia’s smooth olive skin and almond shaped green eyes, Bruce’s strong bone structure and broad shoulders, long dark eyelashes, a graceful neck and the perkiest little-

“Oh.” Dick says in the dark, that answers his question, but it doesn’t change the fact that for arguments sake he and Damian are practically related.

It's wrong. It's very wrong. 

And yet Dick's heart yearns, he wants to sprint back down the hall and into Damian's arms, he wants to smooth a hand through his hair, he wants to erase that awful look on his face when he said he knew Dick didn't feel the same way.

He wants. 

"No! no I don't!" he squashes those thoughts before they can take root.

He doesn't move. He stays in his room until he's calmed down and then goes to see Alfred, he tells Alfred that he was right and he'll be giving Damian some space from now on. 

When he looks at Bruce the guilt gnaws a hole through him and he has to punch his knuckles bloody to get the feeling to go away. He misses Damian, he always misses him but now it holds more weight, he wonders if maybe he should have seen this coming, that it was unfair of him to show so much love for Damian with such little restraint, no wonder the poor kid got his wires crossed.

And that's what he tells himself, that he's hurt Damian by taking his brotherly affections too far. this entire thing is his fault for leading Damian on and he definitely doesn't reciprocate. He ignores the way his stomach swoops when that kiss floods him memory, he tramps down the sting of pain whenever somebody mentions his name and he doesn't seek Damian out again because he promised he wouldn't, not because he's afraid of what he might do when confronted with those supple, rosy pink lips again.

That's what Dick keeps telling himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if there is a cannon age of consent in Gotham but I do know that Gotham is based on New Jersey/New York and the age for consent in New York is 17 so I'm just going with that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to have more smut than I ended up with.  
oh well, I hope you like angst and kissing!

Red Robin could be elusive at the best of times, always working on something, hunkered down in his nest with his computers. Now he was practically a fucking ghost. Once Jason had cooled down enough from his initial pants-shitting mortification to actually go and talk to Tim about what had happened the kid was already gone.

He looked in every safehouse, every robin sized hidey hole, he even took to snooping on Batman which is something he never thought he would need to do again but it seemed like Tim and Damian had both drop off the face of the earth.

He was left with one option, well… one option that didn’t involve shoving some kryptonite down a super clone’s pants and demanding information but he really hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

Red Hood switched on his private link to Oracle’s coms, he didn’t do it often for risk of the bat finding out; you never did know just when or what Batman was monitoring, he preferred to work without someone chatting in his ear anyway, but he needed information and no one knows more than Oracle.

He hears the link crackle into life.

“Err…” good start Todd.

“Jason?” Barbara says immediately.

“Code names Babs” he jokes weakly.

“Oh my god! Tell me it’s not true about you and Damian! He’s a child for Christ sake! How could-”

“Hay!” he interrupts because that’s an accusation he can’t let lie “firstly he’s seventeen going on eighteen, he’s hardly a child and I’m not much older than him anyway! Secondly we haven’t’ done much beyond hand-jobs so it’s not like I popped his cherry or anything and thirdly I was fourteen when I lost my virginity so… er…” he runs out of steam because that rant went somewhere it wasn’t supposed to.

“Jason!” Barbara says with a mixture of exasperation and horror “look, I know it’s _legal_ but… its Bruce’s _son,_ isn’t that… icky?”

Jason can’t resist “icky?” he parrots with smirk.

“Oh shut up!” Barbara snaps “What word would you use?”

“Oh I don’t know.” he says dismissively because he needs to steer the conversation away from the fact that Robin being Bruce’s real son was actually a turn on for him. “I’m calling about Tim.”

“I thought you might be.”There’s a pregnant pause while Barbara waits for Jason to say something else and Jason waits for her to realize he’s not going to talk that easily.

Barbara sighs “Jason, how could you do that to Tim? You know how he feels about you.”

It’s said softly, she actually sounds more sad than judgmental but that doesn’t stop Jason feeling his heart drop through his stomach like an anvil.

“Ha! What? What are you talking about Babs?” Hysterical is never a word Jason would have associated with himself but he’s starting to sound it.

“Don’t be dense Jason!” Barbara snaps “it’s no secret that he’s worshiped you since you where in tights! And anyone with eyes can see how happy he’s been since you started teaming up and going on your little lunch dates, I thought one day I’d be hearing about the two of you shopping for drapes and bedding together but no! I have to listen to how you and Damian where caught doing the naked tango and now Dick’s practical in tears every time he asks if Damian’s checked in with me, Bruce is so uncomfortable at home he’s been going to Wayne enterprises to do actual work! And Tim has gone completely off grid; the last activity I could trace back to him was a message to the teen titans saying he would be unavailable for missions until further notice.”

Jason let’s Barbara’s tirade wash over him. He knew that his replacement looked up to him at one point and it was true that Red Robin had removed the stick up his ass in the last year or so Jason had been hanging out with him, he just assumed it was due to his bad influence. They weren’t dating or anything, sure they worked together, ate together, texted almost daily but dating? No, it wasn’t like that… right?

He couldn’t dwell too long on his and Tim’s hypothetical dates because if what Barbara said was true then Tim the computer whiz kid, Tim the stares at screens so long he has a prescription for eye drops and a very worried optician, Tim the never a foot away from technology at any given time or he might spontaneously combust sort of person, had been offline for weeks.

“He’s he’s not…” Jason falters between denying Tim’s attraction to him and asking if he really hasn’t been on a computer all this time, both are equally bizarre concepts.

“Jason, you like Tim don’t you?”

“…”

“Then why? I’m sorry I just don’t understand.”

He watches rain trickle down the cold rock of the church spire he was clinging to, an ironically fitting place to be judged. “I don’t know.”

They’re both quite for a moment. Jason can feel himself slipping down that familiar slope of despair. He’s ruined this, like every other good thing in his life it has to be fucked up; only this time it’s completely his fault, not his shitty upbringing, not the joker, not Bruce it was all him this time. A sob leaves his throat before he can stifle it.

“Jason…” Oh great now he’s upset Babs too.

“Jason its ok, you can still fix this.”

He half laughs half snorts bitterly, “how?”

“If you really didn’t mean to hurt him then tell him that, tell him you’re sorry.”

“I have to find him first Babs.”

“I can give you his address” she say’s carefully “but I want you to swear to me that you’re going over there to tell him your feelings! None of that macho bullshit calming up; getting all pissy and defensive, tell him! He deserves to know.”

Jason takes a deep breath… and lets it go “okay.”

“Swear!”

“fuck.”

“Jason!”

“Okay I swear! I mean it Babs I promise.” Barbara mutters something about the man-children she has to put up with before giving him an address and wishing him luck.

He ends up at an expensive looking apartment complex in the business part of Gotham, about a stone’s throw from Wayne tower (obnoxious piece of shit) and it occurs to Jason that this might be Tim Drake Wayne’s official place of residence. To say that he’s nervous would be a colossal understatement; he hasn’t been this close to peeing his pants scared since Alfred almost caught him smoking in the library, no villain alive is more terrifying than an angry butler.

He heads straight for the windows; no point trying to get into the building just for Tim to refuse to open the door, one of the windows looks big enough to fit a Red Robin sized body through and is open a crack, he climes in.

It’s dark, a television that’s on standby fills the room with an eerie glow that changes color from red, blue, green, yellow, blue and so on. The only other lights are the blinking of a closed laptop on a table, what might be a coffee maker somewhere in the kitchenette and the soft light of the city through the widows. He can make out some clutter around the floor and sofa, clothes, takeaway boxes, the place actually looks relatively clean compared to some of the Red Robin safehouses he’s been invited to, this seems less lived in, less Tim.

Jason steps carefully forward; now that he’s here he’s not sure how to proceed. Tim probably wouldn’t be pleased to see him so he should enter calmly and try not to disrupt things any more than he needs to. On the other hand; creeping around a vigilante’s house is ill advised so maybe he should shout?

Sparing him of the decision; a birdarang comes slicing through the dark and whips past his ear.

“Tim!” he falls into a defensive crouch on instinct and reaches for a weapon, he then remembers that he left all weapons and his helmet at home as a sign of peace so raises his hands instead. “Tim it’s just me!”

“Jason?” Tim steps out of the dark, he’s wearing what look like loose fitting pajama pants and a black t-shirt, there are hollows around his eyes and stubble on his normal baby smooth chin, Jason suddenly realizes that the clothes aren’t loose fitting by design but because Tim has lost a noticeable amount of weight.

“What are you doing here Jason?” he sounds tired and is gripping a second birdarang so hard Jason can see the tendons popping up on his hands.

“I’m here to talk.” He stands slowly back up and keeps his hands raised in surrender. Sleep deprived and malnourished or not, Tim could probably still kick his ass and looks about one step away from trying.

“What about?” He asks tightly.

“About… I’m sorry about sleeping with Damian, and I’m sorry you had to see it.”

Tim sucks in a breath, his posture tenses and Jason thinks he’s about to get a birdarang to the face. “Is that it?” he asks instead.

“No Tim that’s not it.” Jason shifts uncomfortably under Tim’s gaze, his cool blue eyes are disturbingly wild and the changing colors from the television make him look like some kind of carnival nightmare (god knows Jason’s had a few of them.) “The reason I was doing that with Damian is because… I really wanted to be doing that with you.”

Tim blinks perplexedly and Jason blushes “I mean! Because I like you, it’s you I like not Damian!... is what I’m trying to say.”

“You like me?” Tim’s voice is so small in the darkness.

“Yes. I didn’t think you felt the same and the little bat was so hung up on Dick I just… I was thinking of you, the whole time.”

Tim stars at the floor. The seconds tick by in deadly silence and the moment Jason clocks the angry tremor in his arm Tim’s already moving. Jason moves fast enough to dodge the projectile hitting his face but not fast enough to stop it nicking his finger and sending blood all down his arm.

Tim screams, it’s more of a roar of pain to start with but as he reaches for more and more things to throw at Jason it devolves into screams of exertion and fury.

A mug, the laptop, a remote control, some cutlery, the coffee table, Jason only narrowly avoids that one as it smacks into a wall and leaves a sizable dent in the plaster; he’s lucky he dodged further into the apartment and away from the windows or that would have gone straight through the glass.

“WHY!” Tim finds his voice at the same time he finds a vase to throw which shatters musically against the marble kitchen unit, “WHY COULDEN’T YOU JUST TELL ME! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE DAMIAN? WHY DID YOU RUIN EVERYTHING?!”

Jason is now penned between a chair and the front door while another mug has been sacrificed to Tim’s wrath. He’s genuinely spooked seeing Tim this way, his aim is frighteningly good and it reminds Jason of himself in the months just after the pit, the pain, the anger, the betrayal that cuts so deep you feel it in your marrow, he’s ashamed to have done this to Tim.

Tim is crying now, he vaults the dining table and throws a chair as Jason runs back towards the sofa, Tim chases and jumps onto the sofa; he pulls a bo-staff from between the cushions and hurls himself at Jason with a feral shriek. Jason is pinned to the ground and shields his head with his arms while Tim batters him. He could throw him off, get in a few punches, but he doesn’t, Jason takes the beating he knows he’s owed with stoic grunts of pain and waits for Tim to be done with him.

Tim runs out of steam quickly, his strikes become sloppy until the bo-staff slips from his hand with a clatter. He grips Jason’s jacket in both fists and pants as warm tears flow down his cheeks and drop wetly onto Jason’s face. Jason looks up into his endless blue eyes that are swollen and bloodshot, the bags under them are so dark he looks like he’s wearing the makeup Batman uses under his cowl, he sees the snot starting to drip from Tim’s nose, the unflattering stubble of someone who can’t grow a beard and hasn’t shaved in a while, he’s snuffling and tired and pathetic. “Still so beautiful” Jason thinks, “he’s such a mess and still so beautiful to me, I really must love him.”

He reaches out and cups Tim’s face, “Tim.”

Tim sags and shakes, he lets out a wail that springs fresh tears and Jason carefully sits up so that Tim is in his lap, he wraps one arm around his back and put the other hand on Tim’s head to press him against his shoulder.

Tim cries against Jason’s jacket, Jason pets his hair, rubs a comforting thumb against his back and whispers that he’s sorry over and over.

As much as Tim wants to grip his anger and not let go he feels it waning. He’s so exhausted and Jason smells so good, like leather and smoke and that crappy body spray he likes. The last of his sobs rattle through his ribcage and he starts to breathe steady again, he unsticks his face from Jason’s jacket and tucks his head under the man’s chin, they just sit for a minute.

When Tim feels Jason press a tender kiss to his forehead the last of his resolve crumbles. His heart is too full of this moron to let him go. He leans back so that they are face to face and runs his fingers slowly through that white streak of hair like he’s been longing to do since forever. “Jason I love you.”

Jason gasps quietly; it’s so subtle Tim might not have noticed if he wasn’t pressed against his chest. His lips part and eyes soften, he rubs his thumb lightly over Tim’s sharp cheekbone. “I love you too Tim.”

He guides Tim’s chin into a kiss. Jason hears his blood rushing through his ears and wonder briefly how he could have ever thought kissing someone else might possibly compare to this.

Tim thinks he may have died and gone to heaven, Jason’s lips are warm and dry just like he imagined, his whole body is knot of heated muscle that cradles his so close he can feel the other man’s heartbeat. He sends out a silent prayer to any god that might be listening for him to not wake up and find this was only a dream, never in a million years did he think he would hear the words I love you from Jason Todd.

The two of them continue to kiss clumsily, Jason is trying to restrain his repressed lust that is in danger of taking over the kiss completely, Tim feels like he might break in his arms and Jason wants to wait until he’s fully functioning before taking things too far. Tim meanwhile is close to passing out and has started to meld himself against Jason’s front.

The slightest hint of tongue from Jason sends Tim rearing up to deepen the kiss and they both fall backwards in a dizzy heap.

“Whoa Tim!” Jason pushes the robin ragdoll up and sees that the kid has gone glassy eyed “Sleep, you need sleep Tim, come on let me get you to your room.”

Tim presses another needy kiss to Jason’s mouth and slurs “sleep is for the weak.”

Jason chuckles and lifts the affectionate zombie up by the waist, “didn’t your friend Steph get you a mug with that on?”

“Hummm? Yeah… I think I threw it at you.”

Jason feels a twinge of guilt and mouths over Tim’s chin then up to his lips “I’ll buy you another one.”

Tim decides not to mention that he could not care less about that stupid mug and basks under the attention, the soft kisses feel like a balm to his poor wounded heart and Jason is carrying him like he weighs no more than a feather.

Jason finds Tim’s room without much trouble and sweeps some clothes off the unmade bed, he makes a mental note to put some laundry on for Tim before he leaves, the kid really needs to start taking better care of himself.

“Don’t go” Tim begs when Jason starts to pull away, “are you sure?” Although Tim has clearly forgiven him for now he was trying to break his face a few minutes ago so Jason has to check, Tim nods sleepily and Jason shrugs his jacket off, not like he had any other plans for the night. He strips down to a vest and boxers before climbing in bed beside him.

Tim snuggles closer and wraps his legs in Jason’s. “Tim” Jason warns as his replacement starts getting friendly with the cleavage of his vest. Tim is blissfully unconcerned and rolls his hips forward into Jason’s crotch.

“Dam it Tim! You need rest.” He attempts to wrestle the cuddly bird away but it’s like trying to unstuck a cat with its claws in something. “Please Jason? I’m too turned on to sleep.”

As if to prove a point a stiff peek jabs Jason in the hip, he closes his eyes and wishes for strength, trust his replacement not to make things easy.

In one swift movement he has Tim below him and their greedy mouths meet in a kiss that’s mostly tongue, he whips his dick out of his boxers and yanks Tim’s pajama pants down just enough to rub their erections together. Tim writhes and gasps into Jason’s mouth, Jason grips at a pillow with one hand and strips them both with wrist spraining speed with the other.

Tim is first to come, he squeaks and arches before Jason feels a pulse of wetness between his fingers. It’s enough to send him over the edge; he lets out a shocked sound like he’s been punched as come squirts up Tim’s chest all the way to his ear.

They both pant in the low light. It takes about three seconds for Tim to pass out and another three seconds after that for Jason to realize. Jason wipes them down with one of Tim’s discarded shirts and tucks their softened dicks away, Timmy looks absolutely beat.

Jason folds himself over Tim’s sleeping form and listens to him breathe for a moment.

He’s under no illusions that Tim won’t still be pissed at him when he wakes up, that kind of hurt isn’t something you just get over in one night. For now though he feels content, Tim is here in his arms where he was always supposed to be, it’s more than enough.

He kisses the mop of jet hair rested under his chin and closes his eyes. “Sleep well baby bird.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always your comments and kudos are greatly appreciated <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, I'm sorry for the long gap between posts but  
A, I got a bad cold/sore throat.  
B, my birthday happened and trying to arrange a night out with my friends is like herding cats.  
C, I had to wait to go see the new Joker movie which I loved btw.   
And D, the whole house is in a shambles while we paint the kitchen.  
So yeah, my the next chapter should be up sooner.  
No smut but enjoy some Bruce and Damian feels.

Bruce was sat at his father’s old desk in the study, Alfred the cat curled up on his lap, cooling cup of tea to one side and a stack of papers from Wayne enterprises that he wasn’t really reading.

He was used to tense silences in the mansion, their job was a stressful one and he’d argued with his sons on many occasions. What he wasn’t used to was the overwhelming awkwardness that permeated the walls and that awful look on Dicks face every time they made eye contact.

Bruce knew that Dick and Damian had had words about what happened between him and Jason, he attempted to press for information but Dick had gone so red and babbled about giving Damian his space to experiment. He had hoped that a talk between his sons would smooth things out since Dick always had a way with Damian that no one else quite achieved but evidently things had only gotten worse.

Alfred was mum on the situation, Bruce knew that his son was confiding in the butler if none else; the man had taken over Damian’s walking schedule for Titus and occasionally he would leave the kitchen with the dog and a plate of food and return with neither so at least that proved Damian was still in the house instead of leaping around Gotham beating up scraps, unlike Dick.

For all his warm and happy exterior Dick was a hot headed young man at times, it was one of the reasons Bruce had taken him in; because the people with the largest hearts often turn the cruelest when life breaks them down, Bruce did all he could to provide the boy with some direction and although he could not spare Jason from such a fate he had always been monumentally glad that his first robin stayed bright eyed and optimistic throughout his trials in life.

Lately however; some of that fire was creeping to the surface and it worried Bruce, Dick was out of the cave the moment the police scanner chirped even if it was something the GCPD could handle alone, when he wasn’t doing that he was training on the bars in the cave gym or blooding his knuckles on the punching bags.

Bruce understood, he’d been in that sort of headspace many a time and it wasn’t unusual for any of the robins to have a shorter fuse some weeks, what he did not understand was exactly what had Dick so riled up.

Seeing Damian and Jason in such a position had been shocking for all of them, it was not something any of them had wished to see or even really considered, Bruce did his best to keep out of his children’s love lives (god knows his own was no shining example so any advice from him would be largely hypocritical) and for all that they did for him and everything they sacrificed in the name of the mission the least he could do was keep meddling in their relationships to a minimum.

Tim had been especially affected and the torch he had always held for the former robin was clearly still burning bright even after all these years. Tim’s hero crush on Jason was always fairly obvious and seemingly harmless, when Jason came back from the dead with a thirst for the new robin’s blood Bruce had assumed that Tim’s feelings would curdle and he trusted Tim was smart enough not to go hunting the Red Hood who was so far removed from the Robin they had all loved.

One look at Tim’s face when they saw Jason and Damian together and Bruce knew he had assumed very wrong.

The two of them had been collaborating for many months now; cleaning up around the docks and the slums that Red Hood called home, they rarely strayed close Batman’s patrolling route but that didn’t mean he wasn’t unaware of their escapades.

They worked well together from what he had seen, Tim was calm and calculating were Jason was ruthless and relentless, the balance of their personalities meshed wonderfully as Bruce had often suspected they would, it was no coincidence that he and Damian worked best with the more chipper Dick to offset their own seriousness and it seems that Tim was the cool water to Jason’s raging fire, he had even convinced Jason to use none lethal rounds more than once and Bruce was both impressed and quietly grateful.

He kept himself clear of the boys as much as he could, he gathered intel on how they were doing and was satisfied that his two estranged sons were working better with each other than they ever did with him. A few years ago that might have stung but his relationship with both of them has long since crumbled beyond repair, he knows that Tim only speaks to him civilly because of his dedication to the job and that he and Jason can never again be left in a room together without coming to blows. But still, his sons were alive, appeared happy and continued to fight for justice just like he taught them, he could live with that if nothing else.

It hadn’t occurred to him that Tim’s feelings would re-blossom in proximity to Jason, it should have, an oversight of his that had him clutching his temples in despair for himself. Tim was a logical character even as a child, he was not prone to romantic attachments or shows of affection and this should have been clues enough for Bruce to realize that Tim’s feelings for the previous Robin ran deeper than simple hero worship or childhood crushes.

Tim was in love with Jason not Robin, not the cape and the boots and the position at the side of Batman as Bruce had always assumed but the boy. The boy he photographed smoking on patrol, the boy he instantly recognized as not being the original Robin, the boy whose title he had been so desperate to honor that he worked himself ragged to aid a violent and grieving Batman.

Bruce felt foolish for not seeing it sooner and guilty for not realizing until the moment he saw heartbreak on Tim’s face. His common sense tells him that there was nothing he could have done to help even if he did know in advance, a more stubborn part of him argues that there is always something more he can do and he didn’t do nearly enough.

Tim had immediately gone radio silent and Bruce reached out to Oracle to see if he had checked in with the teen titans or been spotted anywhere else. Oracle had been shocked to hear about Damian and Jason but not at all surprised by Tim’s withdrawal, apparently she had always known about Tim’s attraction to Jason and was 90% sure that Jason felt the same, Bruce was skeptical but clearly Barbara knew better than him if she had seen what he couldn’t. He dearly hoped that Barbara’s intuition was right and that some of the kindheartedness he knew Jason used to posses still remained; hopefully Jason would do the brave thing and seek Tim out.

It was almost a month after the incident when Oracle sent him a message that Jason was going to go and talk to Tim, a week later and Red Robin was back in action (looking a bit thinner and out of practice) with the Red Hood often at his side, Bruce sighed with relief and Alfred smiled for the first time in weeks.

Now his only problem was Dick and Damian. Damian holed up for as long as he could but eventually the itch to be out on Gotham’s streets became too great and he started patrolling again. He didn’t work with Dick, didn’t talk to him, didn’t even look at him while all Dick seemed to do was stare at the back of Damian’s head, Damian clearly sensed this because sometimes he would tut and shoot Dick a harsh glare for just a second, the second was enough for Dick to look abashed and disappear for a few hours, once Bruce found him in the cinema room watching Dumbo and crying (never a good sign, Dick only watched that movie when he was feeling low and wanted to cry it out).

Bruce was at a loss, this wasn’t a problem he could tackle as Batman and no amount of verbal probing led him any closer to understanding just what his sons were dealing with; if anything they clammed up more.

A firm rap at his study door surprised him and Alfred the cat’s eyes slices open at the sound.

“Come in.”

Damian walks through the door with a pinched look and stands in front of the desk with his arms folded.

“Pennyworth said we should discuss my birthday, it is fast approaching and we’ve barely made arrangements.”

Bruce sets a thoughtful expression on his face and nods as if Damian’s birthday was at the very front of his mind, he makes a mental memo to thank Alfred for sending his son to talk with him.

“Alfred is handling the cake, I have a list of bands and caterers that have been screened and their menus for you to look through” he takes a wad of printed papers out of his desk draw and hands it to Damian, “I also have the regular guest list of Gotham socialites that would be offended if we did not invite them to the party, of course we could always keep the party small and just invite a few of your friends, it is your birthday after all.”

Damian sifts the papers quickly and sets a large batch back down on the desk before reading the rest more carefully, he hands the résumés of one band and one caterer back to Bruce.

“These two, I think for appearances sake we should invite them but we can keep my real guests in the dining room, I can easily hop between rooms and I think Jon and Colin would be more comfortable away from the crowds.”

Bruce almost smiles, Colin Wilkes and the younger Kent have been good friends to Damian and it was thoughtful of his son to want them out of the way of Gotham’s musty old upper-class but still involved in his birthday.

“I’m sure that will be fine, we can have the caterers fill the table just for them; what about Raven, Beast Boy and Maybe some of the other heroes?”

Damian grunts an affirmative and strokes Alfred the cat who has crawled off of Bruce’s lap to greet its master.

Bruce weighs his next question for a moment before asking, “And what about Dick?”

Damian freezes and meets his father’s eyes in a weary glower “What about him?”

“Is he still invited? After… whatever has happened between the two of you?”

Damian holds his stare and Bruce would not have been surprised if the boy had thrown everything from the desk and stormed out, instead he watches his son deflate and pick up his cat (who is purring at the attention and snuggles into Damian’s chest.)

“He is still invited father. I would like to… keep things civil between us.”

“Damian… what happened?”

He looks vacantly at the surface of Bruce’s desk and doesn’t answer, “Son? Please, you can tell me.”

He waits and all that fills the room is the cat’s steady rumbling.

When Damian looks back at Bruce his eyes have gone misty and Bruce steels himself for some sort of awful news or revelation.

“I… Grayson has come to mean a great deal to me and… after he saw me with Hood I was forced to reveal the depths of my affections, he does not feel the same and I’m afraid I have made things awkward.”

He says the last part with bitterness. Bruce is thankful for his years perfecting a neutral face because otherwise his eyebrows might have hit the ceiling while his chin met the floor.

His son… loves Dick Grayson? Well he knew he loved him of course but not that he **_loved_** him, although now that he thinks about it Damian’s erratic reactions to Dick would have been textbook signs of an unrequited crush on anyone who wasn’t… well, Damian.

He leans forward with his elbows on the desktop and his hands clasped in front of his lips, he reads his sons expression, it’s an expressions he’s seen in the mirror many a time, after Silver, Andrea and Selina more than once, the barely concealed heartache is just there in the light of his pupil.

Damian’s mouth curls unhappily under Bruce’s scrutiny, “Go on then.”

Bruce quirks and eyebrow. “What?”

“Laugh! Tell me I’m disgusting! Naive! Stupid! That it’s Impossible!” He stops when a single large tear hits the cat on the head and makes it flinch, “_murrp_?” it questions and then closes its eyes contently when Damian rubs the damp spot away with a thumb.

“Ah.” Thinks Bruce, in Damian’s defense some of those things did enter his mind.

He’s so young and the al Ghul’s filled his head with so much hate it’s a wonder the boy even managed to make friends much less form a romantic attachment to somebody. Nightwing was Damian’s first real friend on top of being his mentor, his sibling and his Batman, it was hardly a surprise when Dick ended up being Damian’s go to for emotional comfort but Bruce had no idea when the relationship between his oldest and youngest had taken such a turn.

Puberty he supposes is somewhat to blame, Damian was hardily going to remain celibate forever and Dick was a truly beautiful man inside and out; Damian would not be the first person to fall in love with Dick Grayson and definitely not the last. Dick was such an easy person to fall for, Bruce had seen people melt before his eyes under that sunny charm and bright smile; he had done it himself in a paternal way.

He and Alfred always hoped that Dick and Barbara would stop their on again off again arrangement and eventually settle down. Barbara was good for him, she never held him back but also didn’t put up with any of his crap, they made a wonderful team and Bruce had yet to meet anyone he found more deserving of his first son’s attention.

Damian and Dick however… clashed; and argued.

They bounced off each other like rubber on glue.

They zigged when the other zagged.

They buoyed each other up and took care of one another.

They always made up no matter how much they fought.

They would go to hell and back in a heartbeat if it meant keeping the other safe.

They love each other to pieces and Bruce was starting to realize just how blind he had been to what must have been steadily developing over the years.

He wonders if Barbara knew about this as well, she probably did, he’s fairly certain Alfred knew anyway.

He gets up from his chair and goes to rest his hand on Damian’s shoulder, he feels the shoulder tense and Damian’s face becomes a blank slate; clearly preparing to be told off for his behavior. It’s times like this that Bruce regrets not punching Talia and Ra’s in the face more that he already has, and for not being very good at expressing compassion around his children.

“I’m not going to laugh at you Damian, your feelings are not a joke.”

Damian blinks in surprise and relief, Bruce continues. “Loving someone isn’t a choice and although I’m tempted to tell you that you’re too young for this; that it’s just hormones and what you’re experiencing will pass with time… I’m honestly not sure I’d be telling the truth.”

He sighs and moves his hand to cradle the back of Damian’s head and feel his soft hair, it’s a gesture he remembers his father doing to him as a boy and he marvels at just how tall his own son is now; standing almost nose to nose with him.

“You are nearly a man Damian, and a smart man at that, someone who’s seen more in eighteen years than most do in a lifetime and I know because I’ve seen it too. I think you’re more than mature enough to know your own heart and if your heart tells you that you have feelings for Dick then that’s for you and him to work out not for me to ridicule. As for calling you disgusting… You’re my son and I love you, I could never find you disgusting, don’t ever think that.”

When Bruce gently pulls Damian’s head forward to press it against his heart Damian leans in and rests his cheek on his father’s chest, it’s one of very few hugs the two have ever shared and it’s one they both know will stay with them for years to come.

The moment is only interrupted when Alfred the cat meows in protest at being squished and they part with Bruce giving one last pet to his son’s hair.

Damian puts Alfred back on the desk, the cat shakes irritably and begins grooming. Bruce goes to his safe behind one of the paintings hanging on the wall and pulls out a small box.

He hands it to Damian who gives him a quizzical look before opening it.

Inside is a men’s watch with a gold rim, gold roman numerals, black face and a stiff dark-chocolate brown leather strap. It looks vintage and is heavy in his palm.

“That was my father’s,” says Bruce quietly “I planned to give it to you on your birthday, I could never bring myself to wear it but I had it restored and even if you don’t like the sentiment; monetarily it’s still quite valuable.”

Damian fits it to his wrist and listens to hear it tick softly, it’s in perfect time.

“I do like the sentiment father. Thank you for the gift and for speaking with me… I, would like to speak with you again about… matters discussed; at a later date, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course Damian, whenever you’re ready, and thank you for… your trust.”

They smile identical smiles, and Damian leaves the room with his cat in tow.

Bruce feels lighter somehow. He thinks about Dick’s behavior, his eldest was probably feeling guilty for hurting Damian and knowing Dick he would also blame himself for accidentally cultivating the teen’s interest, this was nonsense of course; Dick was just naturally affectionate and he didn’t always realize what that did to others, there was no way he could have known effect that his brotherly love was having on Damian.

Bruce debates going to have a talk with Dick but after his heart to heart with Damian it seems inappropriate, he decides to wait and heads down to the batcave to warm up before patrol.

An hour or two later Alfred and Damian come down for the night, Alfred hands Bruce some coffee and they watch Damian do a lap; leaping around the caves gym.

“Thank you Alfred.” He could be thanking him for the coffee but they both know that he’s not.

“You’re welcome Master Bruce, it seemed like the right time.”

“Where is Dick?”

“As far as I’m aware he has already gone out Master Bruce.”

Bruce grumbles and finishes his scalding coffee.

“Don’t fret Master Bruce, I believe this is something he needs to come to terms with by himself.”

“Do you think that he…” Bruce scowls and can’t finish the sentence.

“Who can say? Although I think the last time I saw two people who loved each other more at odds was when you and miss kyle where still an item.”

Alfred smirks when he sees Bruce considering this, his relationship with Catwoman had more similarities to Nightwing and Robin’s than the man would ever acknowledge.

“She called recently.”

“Perhaps you should call her back.”

“Perhaps.” Says Bruce, and sweeps off into his Batmobile, his son jumps in after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys think I should try my hand at batjokes? It's a ship I really like I just don't have many ideas for it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone!  
Thank you all for your support so far, it keeps me going when I have writers block.  
This is a Jay/Tim chapter and has lots of fluff with a little bit of smut, let me know what you think!

The first week at Tim’s apartment was a roller-coaster, Tim showered and ate what Jason cooked for him; he slowly got color back in his cheeks and Jason refused to let him back on his laptop until the dark circles had faded from his eyes. They argued often, Tim would scream himself hoarse and then storm off to his room for a few hours, Jason sometimes went for a long walk to calm down; he was very afraid of lashing out at Tim if he got too angry and once or twice he found himself griping a kitchen knife with a little too much intent while they fought, he always came back and usually with food as a peace offering.

There were soft moments too. Tim bandaged the cut he gave Jason on his finger and kissed is better, they snuggled on the sofa and watched the shopping channels; laughing and making fun of some of the more ridiculous or ugly items and which Gotham villain would look worst in the clothes.

Jason kept the sexual contact to a minimum while Tim was recuperating but his replacement could be very persuasive, to start with there was light touching, hand jobs and lots of kissing. One morning Jason awoke to a warm tight mouth around his cock and shrieked through his orgasm, not a shriek of pleasure but a startled one like someone had poured ice down his shirt, Tim laughed uproariously until Jason tackled him to the floor to get his own back.

Tim had been texting his friends to let them know he was still alive but they were getting increasingly agitated when he refused to say what was wrong and decline their offers to visit. Kon must have gotten worried because he showed up at Tim’s window and was horrified to find his friend cuddling the Red Hood and eating takeout like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Things got heated when Kon demanded to know what the hell Jason had done to Tim, had he kidnapped him? Brainwashed him? Why did Tim look like crap?

Tim sent Jason out of the apartment for his own safety while he tried to explain to Kon what was happening. It was just as well because when Tim described his breakdown after what Jason had done Kon’s eyes lit up menacingly red.

When Jason got back Tim was very upset, he had convinced Kon that Jason didn’t mean any harm but not that his and Jason’s relationship was a good idea, Kon was hung up on the fact that the Red Hood had tried to kill Tim and would not let it go no matter how hard Tim defended that circumstances were different and Jason was not in his right mind at the time. Kon flew off sour faced and with a promise that he would be back the moment Red Hood put a toe out of line. Tim hated fighting with his best friend but held out hope that Kon would come around eventually.

That night he and Jason had sex for the first time, Jason eased him open and slid right where Tim had always wanted him, it started gentle but Tim’s dirty talk soon had Jason going hammer and tongs; just how Tim wanted it. It must have opened the flood gates of Jason’s libido because the man could not keep his hands off him after that. They had sex in the shower next, then the kitchen counter, then the sofa multiple times and by the time they had christened the whole apartment Tim was better and they were back to patrolling, they then had fun fucking on rooftops between missions.

The two of them began using one of Red Robins nests that was closer to Red Hoods territory for convenience, Jason seemed happy with this, too much time away from the slums made him antsy and he brought back a cash of weapons and Kevlar so that he could suit up and come back to the nest without a pit stop to his safe-houses.

They navigate this new living arrangement for a month and settle nicely into a routine were Tim finds them promising leads while Jason cleans up, cooks and makes their shared space more comfortable. One day Tim was curled up at his computer; studying the background of a potentially dirty cop when Red Hood came back with a loudly announced. “Honey I’m home!”

He hangs up his jacket and takes off his heavy combat boots, “I brought Tai food because I don’t really feel like cooking tonight.” He says; setting down the bags, and then Jason kisses Tim on the forehead and goes to get plates.

Tim looks around. Jason’s books were stacked neatly on the bookshelf Tim had never used in the corner, Jason’s tropical knick-knacks that Roy bought him for jokes sat on a shelf next to the computer, Tim’s shoes that he normal left on the floor were stored away next to Jason’s in a cheap looking shoe rack that Jason brought back from somewhere, a toiletries bag with Jason’s preferred deodorant, cologne and shampoo occupied a space next to the bathroom mirror.

It suddenly hit Tim that Jason was right, he was home, this was their home together.

Jason sees the odd expression on Tim’s face as he dishes the food out. “Are you okay baby bird?” Tim leaps from his seat and wraps himself around Jason; Jason drops a plate in surprise but hugs Tim back.

“Jason!” Tim nuzzles his nose against his cheek and Jason smiles bemusedly at his replacement’s fit of affection.

“Do you have anything left at your old place?” asks Tim, referring to Jason’s main apartment where he keeps his personal things.

“Erm… a few bits, why?”

“I’d like you to move in with me, you know… officially.”

The smile that brakes across Jason’s face could light up rooms, “you’re making us official Timmy?”

Tim blushes, “if you want.”

Jason holds his gaze and moves one hand from where it was holding him up to slide under the boy’s shirt and feel the smooth expanse of back underneath, Tim shivers and hugs tighter; his back was a sensitive area and Jason liked to take advantage of that.

“I’d love to move into your nest babybird.” He murmurs against Tim’s lips and move in to kiss him.

A few weeks later they decide to start going on proper dates.

Jason typically takes Tim out after a successful nights beating up criminals so they end up going in full Red Hood and Red Robin entire, he has to ditch the helmet for a mask so he can eat.

As it turns out; Jason has a lot of favorite dinners and restaurants, they’re all ones he’s saved from extortioners and lone-sharks so as well as getting most of his meals “on the house” for his efforts he also likes to make sure that no one else has come knocking for money that isn’t theirs while he’s been away.

They go to a hole-in-the-wall Chinese takeaway where the staff is thrilled by how well Tim speaks Mandarin.

They visit a Cuban place that has some of the best coffee Tim has ever tried and the cook gives them both sandwiches big enough to feed a family of five. Jason leaves with two extra sandwiches to go and Tim with a bag of their coffee blend.

Tim’s favorite by far is a little Italian restaurant where an old lady greets the Red Hood with a gush of Italian that has Jason shuffling bashfully on the spot (Tim’s Italian is very rusty but he thinks he hears quite a few pet names being used.) When Jason introduces Red Robin as his boyfriend the lady slaps both hands to her face and gasps, “Aaaaaa! The Red Hood has a booooy frieeeeeend!” she squeals with joy and then whips around to scream something at the chef in the back.

She ushers them over to a table; talking loudly about how pleased she is and how pretty the Red Hood’s lovely boyfriend is and pinches Tim’s cheeks before he sits down. A very large man in a stained apron brings them what looks like every item on the menu and slaps Jason approvingly on the shoulder before he leaves, Tim grins the entire time and takes every opportunity to hand feed Jason for the entertainment of the lady watching not so subtly from the kitchen doorway.

They go home with free tiramisu, Jason explains that he shot a gang member who almost killed the owner’s son and essentially erased the debt of “protection money” the restaurant owed. The old lady was always so pleased to see him that he started visiting them more often than any of the other places and he apologized to Tim that she reacted so strongly to their relationship but she liked to pester him about dating her nieces so maybe this would stop that. Tim didn’t mind, it warmed his heart to know that Jason had such caring people in his life; however briefly. They make the restaurant a regular date spot.

When Tim takes Jason out it’s usually during the daytime and in civilian clothes.

Being Timothy Drake Wayne gets him into a lot of places and it’s fun to take advantage of that.

He takes Jason shopping and buys him new jackets and shoes, they nearly have a blazing argument over Tim “wasting money” and Jason not being a “charity case” but Jason calms down when Tim explains how buying people things that they will use and love brings him happiness, he also points out that if Jason gets to spoil him with food it’s unfair that Tim doesn’t get to do the same with something else.

They compromise by going to less expensive places like malls and markets. Jason remembers Barbara’s comment about drapes and bedding while they’re shopping for extra pillows; so he calls her up to ask if they should get hot-red colored or cornflower-blue bed-sheets. She laugh/cries for a full minute and says why not both since they’ll be changing them so often, Tim overhears and he and Jason giggle so much that a fellow shopper gives them an unsettled look and edges away, this makes them laugh even harder.

On one such date they decide to get slurpees before having a nice walk through a park that has a big fountain in the middle, Tim had found that the simpler the date the more Jason enjoyed them. Tim gets a cherry flavor for Jason and spends a few minutes choosing before settling on orange, he finds Jason putting coins into the toy vending machines by the wall, he has a handful of plastic pods with what looks like little robin and batman figures inside.

“Get the one you were after?” Tim asks with amusement and watches his boyfriend paw franticly at the metal flap and bash the machine on the side with his fist.

“No.” Huffs Jason and inserts another coin, “look! They have Red Hood themed ones! I’ve never seen them before.”

Tim side eyes the pictures and sure enough a Red Hood figure, keyring and bouncy ball is advertised next to the usual Batman, Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, Superman and Flash ones, there is even some Red Robin stuff which makes him smirk.

Tim goes back to speak to the girl at the register who he noticed flushing and biting her lip when he paid. He asks her if she could open the machines for him and she babbles a bit about how that isn’t really allowed, he smiles his best press smile at her and explains that it will make his boyfriend very happy, she looks about ready to faint and agrees to open them in exchange for a selfie with him.

Jason mutters something about rich boys but looks pleased when he picks out the capsules he wants.

They go on their merry way and find a deserted park bench to sit at. Tim sucks at his slurpee and admires the lamp light reflecting off a nearby water fountain, the way the sky is turning a dusky pink, the gentle rustle of leaves.

Jason is preoccupied sorting through his prizes, he finds a Wonder Woman badge and puts it proudly on his hoodie, and then he scoffs when he opens one with a Batman dog-tag necklace.

“What are you going to do with the ones you don’t want?” Tim asks around his straw.

“I dunno, maybe I’ll give them to the bat prince for his birthday.”

Tim chuckles at the image of Damian getting cheap plastic crap for his eighteenth, “his birthday is soon, are you coming to the party with me?”

Jason takes a thoughtful sip of his drink before answering, “Am I even invited?”

“You are if I say you are.” Say’s Tim sternly.

Jason chews his lip, “I’m surprised you’d want me Damian anywhere near each other.”

“What, am I going to turn around and find you two screwing in broom cupboard or something?”

“No!”

“Then there’s nothing for me to worry about is there?”

Jason fidgets under Tim’s gaze, after everything he’s done, the raw trust that his replacement still shows for him is unreal. It makes his skin feel tight with an emotion he has no name for, something between love and hope and terror.

“You don’t have to go you know, I asked because I want you there with me but you don’t have to go if it’s too much. I understand why you avoid seeing _him_ as much as possible.” Tim mixes his slurpee with the straw while he talks.

Jason swallows dryly and wonders how he ever got so lucky. It’s not like talking with Dick or Babs, he tries, god he tries but they never get it, they always circle back to when he’s coming home, talk about how much Alfred misses him like he’s stupid enough not to see through them and the **gall** that they would even use Alfred like that pisses him off. They know what has been done to him but they don’t understand, he isn’t coming home because doesn’t have one anymore, that ship sailed the day Bruce let him die.

The outlaws had given him a home of sorts but it was only temporary, they couldn’t stay in Gotham and he could never really leave, he could cope; he was homeless as kid and as an adult it was nothing he wasn’t used to already.

But now he has Tim, and Tim gets it. He’s sure at one point his replacement was also itching to get him back into the bat family fold but that was before, before Tim saw what they weighed up against the mission, how little Bruce cared at the end of the day, what working for Batman truly cost.

Tim still asks him to be involved, team up, talk to Alfred, don’t shoot anyone in the face. He never pushes, never backs him into a corner or tries to manipulate Jason into it, he always asks but understands when the answer is usually no, it makes Jason so grateful he could burst.

He smiles warmly at his boyfriend and reaches over to hold his hand, “Bring me back some of the cake?”

Tim squeezes his hand back, “sure, I’ll ask Alfred to throw in some of those sugar cookies you like.”

“Ask him that and you’ll be bringing home a full catering van, he always gives me too much.”

“That’s the idea.” Chuckles Tim and they lapse into a peaceful silence.

Tim is staring at the fountain again when he feels Jason’s hand move and something slip onto his finger. He looks down to see a metal ring with the Red Robin logo on it, it feels light; no doubt made out of cheap aluminum or something but the logo looks decently enameled for a kid’s toy.

He snorts, “Haha! Are you proposing to me Jay?” Tim waggles his ringed finger.

“…Yes.”

Tim spits the sip of slurpee he just took all over the ground and gapes at Jason.

“What? Seriously!?”

Jason fluffs the back of his hair sheepishly, he’s blushing high on his cheeks.

“Well… if you want to, I’d be… game.” He cringes at himself but Tim looks like he just offered him the moon on a platter.

His baby bird sits there quietly for so long that Jason starts to wonder if he’s reading this wrong and Tim is just figuring out how turn him down gently.

“No pressure, we’ve only been dating for a few months… if you don’t count all those times we got breakfast together before the Damian thing which I don’t know maybe we should but I still get it if you think we’re going to fast or-“

He gets cut off by Tim hurling his drink to the floor and jumping into his lap, he’s showered with kisses and Tim’s delicate fingers come up to thread through his hair. Tim noses and kisses at the white streak he loves so much and a hot sigh of air blows against Jason’s forehead.

“Yes. I’m saying yes but… we need to wait, you’re legally dead and Kon and my friends still don’t like you very much, there are so many things we need to plan around and I…”

He looks deeply into Jason’s aqua blue eyes, “How do you feel about a long engagement?”

Jason pulls him into a slow wet kiss, “as long as you like” he whispers against Tim’s lips.

They go home and decide to stay there; patrol can wait until tomorrow, tonight they celebrate their engagement.

Jason strips Tim slowly, all the way down to his black silk underwear, Jason had been amused to learn that it’s what Tim wore under his expensive suits but only until Tim showed them off in person; apparently Jason had a kink for silk he never knew about and now Tim wears them all the time.

He runs his calloused palms up and down Tim’s smooth creamy thighs while he sucks at the budge under the dampening silk, when he drags his tongue over the wettest patch at the center Tim shudders. He mouths and mouths until the material is completely ruined and then pushes two fingers up against Tim’s covered hole.

The thin layer of silk between his entrance and Jason’s firm fingers is like worst kind of tease and Tim pushes his hips forward to gain the friction that Jason refuses to give, he groans in frustrated pleasure and spreads his legs further, “Jason…” He pleads.

Jason moves the underwear away from Tim’s hole so he can slip a dry finger inside but doesn’t take them off, he pulls the material tightly and watches how Tim’s cock strains against the wet silk, it looks obscene and Jason loves to stare at how the bulge moves and twitches as he sinks his finger in and out.

“Jay please!” Tim cries out and Jason gives him another finger but doesn’t release the pressure on Tim’s dick, instead he sucks at a testicle that has slipped the confines of the underwear and Tim howls and arches on the bedspread.

“Almost baby bird, almost there.” Jason soothes as he finally slips off the silk under-things; he admires the flush and swollen cock that springs out and applies some of their favored cherry lube to his fingers, Tim sighs at the feeling of cold lube to his hot dry hole and bites his lip when Jason kisses over the knife scar on his chest. They never talk about it but they both know that Red Hood came very close to killing Tim and Jason likes to lavish his faded scars with love every chance he gets, it feels like a silent apology and it makes Tim ache with fondness.

When Tim is loose enough to handle three of Jason’s beefy fingers with ease; he slicks up his dick and takes Tim by the hips. He looks deep into his boyfriend’s eyes while he slides home and they both moan when he bottoms out.

It starts slow, long deep thrusts that have Tim’s toes curling. Jason loves to tease and would happily keep him like this all night, Tim is less patient and knows just how to get him to move.

“Ahhh! Harder! Harder Jay, fuck me like you mean it! Oh god! That’s it, there! Oh that’s so good! Oh Jay! Hurt me! Fuck me! Fucking fuck me till I can’t walk!”

Jason growls and thrusts harder, hearing the normally cool and collected Tim Drake squealing for his dick just stets him off and any plans he had of drawing this out go out the window.

The room becomes a cacophony of grunts, groans, gasps and the squeak of the mattress springs. Tim looks up at the flushed face of Jason, the white streak of hair is covering his eyes and his biceps are flexing as he grips Tim’s legs, sweat trickles down his collarbone and over his abs, his nipples are at full peek and then Tim sees a flash of intense green/blue eyes staring at him and he’s gone.

He screams for Jason to touch him and the moment he feels a hand on his dick he’s coming. Jason grits his teeth against the wave of pleasure when Tim’s insides constrict around him, he waits until the last spurt of cum has left Tim’s cock before letting himself orgasm and lets out a breathy little “Ahh!~”

Tim watches Jason twitch and toss his head back from under hooded eyes. Jason always goes so lax when he comes and the sounds he makes are so soft and vulnerable that Tim isn’t sure he knows he’s making them.

When Jason has finished he goes limp and pulls out before rolling to one side, he gathers Tim up in his arms and they wriggle together in a sated, oversensitive ball.

Jason kisses at Tim’s head and eyelids, “good?” he asks.

Tim can’t help but giggle “do you really need to ask? You’re always good.”

“Hmmm, you mind telling Roy that? He has this cap that says “sex god” that he never lets me borrow.”

Tim snickers against Jason’s chest and Jason smiles quietly into his hair.

For the first time in years everything is perfect.

He prays to a god he’s never believed in that things stay that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!   
One chapter to go and it's probably going to be looooong so wish me luck :3

**Author's Note:**

> praise be I got the art up finally!


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